Declaration of Independence by Image Shack/Public Domain
So, Rick Santorum, among other Rethugs, has decided to quote the Declaration of Independence as a ruling document. He dotes on the phrase: "All Men are Created Equal and Endowed by their Creator...' what Mr. Santorium doesn't address is, which God? Which Creator? There's a long list to choose from. Is it possible that Mr. Jefferson et al were saying that it was an individual choice, to be made by each individual American as he saw fit?
Interesting supposition. Is there a way we can tell what they might have been thinking? How they, themselves, felt about and viewed christianity. After all, that is Mr. Santorums chosen superstition. We all know whom he and Mr. Romney view as their creator. Luckily, because we still have archives of private writings and letters to each other, we know exactly what their mindset was.
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789 (Richard Price had written to TJ on Oct. 26. about the harm done by religion and wrote "Would not Society be better without Such religions? Is Atheism less pernicious than Demonism?")
Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and
reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition ... In this
enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's
religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of
the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the
United States.
-- George Washington,
letter to the members of the New Church in Baltimore, January 27, 1793
I am persuaded, you will
permit me to observe that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but
little political direction. To this consideration we ought to ascribe the
absence of any regulation, respecting religion, from the Magna-Charta of our
country.
-- George Washington, responding
to a group of clergymen who complained that the Constitution lacked mention of
Jesus Christ,
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